Higher Order Teachershttp://blog.gradeable.com
Innovative ideas, tips, and reflections for educatorsMon, 16 Nov 2015 20:15:40 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=5.0.3A Future of Makinghttp://blog.gradeable.com/2015/06/a-future-of-making/
http://blog.gradeable.com/2015/06/a-future-of-making/#respondSun, 21 Jun 2015 22:48:07 +0000http://blog.gradeable.com/?p=2732Continue reading →]]>Last week was the Week of Making, an annual celebration of the Maker Movement and its impact on education. Most notably, the White House Maker Faire kicked off with hundreds of amazing submissions. Check out their blog.

Parul learns how to make a paper water balloon from a 13-year-old origami master (and Hatch Maker Space regular).

To celebrate and learn from students and educators in the Maker Movement, I decided to bring my entire core team at Gradeable…including our product designer, full stack developer, and community manager…to the Hatch MakerSpace in Watertown. We met the volunteer team who have designed and run the space. We also met – and learned from – some incredible students who are making, playing and learning at Hatch.

While looking around at the art supplies, circuit kits, soldering station, tools, sewing machine, 3-D printer, and a million other starting points for creative exploration, I was struck by the potential of spaces like this to fundamentally improve education. The opportunities MakerSpaces provide for exploration, failure, and exposure to new challenges help kids develop problem solving skills, lateral thinking and creativity at their own pace. Imagining the future of education like this–classrooms without limitations, that empower multiple forms of expression– sincerely excites me.

These types of spaces and projects need to be more widely accessible to students– and not just in suburban communities. Empowering education needs to be the norm, not the exception–for my daughter, for your kids, and for the paradigm-shifting innovations a generation of Makers has the potential to lead.

Gradeable asks the students of Hatch about their favorite projects, future projects, lessons learned, and keys to success.

To help spread this movement into mainstream schools, my team and I are developing a platform to help teachers track authentic student learning in project-based assessments with consistency and accuracy. Open-ended, student-directed projects can be perceived as chaotic despite their mind-opening and empowering outcomes. We aim to help teachers attach specific content standards to each project and track student development. Check out Gradeable.

Here are a few other great resources to explore if you are interested in bringing a Maker/PBL project into your classroom:

And, last but not least, if you have a child in the Boston area, you need to stop by and check out Hatch Maker Space. It’s like the Children’s Museum, but fewer people and cooler stuff to play with. The entire space is volunteer-run, so check out the schedule online here. If you’re anything like us, you may find that you intend to stop by for a quick visit and you end up spending a few hours! You (and your kids) won’t regret it!

]]>http://blog.gradeable.com/2015/06/a-future-of-making/feed/0Gradeable is now FREE. Here’s why.http://blog.gradeable.com/2015/05/gradeable-is-now-free-heres-why/
http://blog.gradeable.com/2015/05/gradeable-is-now-free-heres-why/#respondSun, 10 May 2015 23:05:49 +0000http://blog.gradeable.com/?p=2685Continue reading →]]>Gradeable is happy to announce that we now offer a free version of our time-saving assessment and analytics platform to enable frequent, high quality feedback and formative assessment.

Why are we choosing to make our assessment tools free for teachers?

Students deserve assessment to empower diversity in learning and thinking, not stifle it. Machine-scorable bubble sheet testing reduces learning to its lowest common denominator, prioritizing “testable” skills over the boundless forms of learning that arise through engaging education. Low-stakes formative assessment is proven by widely accepted education research to improve teacher effectiveness, and we are making this practice more efficient and consistent every day. Cost should not stand in the way of a practice that can meaningfully improve education.

How do we help teachers and students?

We provide instant student performance and standards mastery analytics in your personalized dashboard, to help you offer your students timely, formative feedback. We achieve this by first helping you grade, organize and analyze any kind of project or assessment you assign…including paper quizzes and tests, pictures of projects, and online assessments…without having to pour over 1000 spreadsheets. Anything you can scan, share, or upload is “gradeable“, because authentic learning can look like anything…

Gradeable tools are now free to all K-12 teachers because formative assessment addresses a cry for help from the field of education that has been growing steadily louder for the past few years. We hear you, and we made our product free to address this problem on a massive scale. Here’s the bottom line: assessment is NOT education, assessment should EMPOWER education. Check out this amazingly articulate critique of high-stakes testing brought to you by a super-star 4th grader.

It’s not news that Common Core and the implementation of the PARCC assessments are dominating headlines in education and beyond. The recent adoption of Common Core Assessments in 46 states across the country, and the implementation of PARCC assessments, have ignited a fiery debate about the value of universal standards for education, testing, school culture and the role of teaching and learning.

To some parents, and many teachers, this issue is simple: there is too much testing in our schools, leading to rampant teaching to the test, and widespread anxiety among students and teachers alike. To others, PARCC and Common Core are a welcome resolution to the need for nationalized standards in education because otherwise a student’s zip code can greatly influence the quality of the K-12 education students he or she receives before leaving school. If you’re new to the debate, here’s an intro:

Those who view PARCC and Common Core favorably argue:

Common Core and PARCC promote more time for reading and encourage critical thinking: Common Core standards integrate reading and critical thinking at higher levels than past state curriculums. This is achieved using high-order vocabulary, multiple answer questions, and the integration of reading into non-traditional subject in STEM and the Social Sciences. This adoption is a positive for education and student learning nationwide.

National standards (and the tests that access them) allow us to compare schools and learning across state lines: Why should different states have different standards? This question has puzzled educators and parents alike for years, especially as students enter institutions of higher education across state lines. When an increasing proportion of students enter higher education unprepared for the courses ahead of them, common standards and testing can help address this disparity. Over time, we will be able to pinpoint best practices within successful states to encourage student learning across the nation at large.

Those who view PARCC and Common Core unfavorably argue:

PARCC intensifies a culture of “teaching to the test” in American Schools: Accountability standards and high-stakes testing have been in place since the passing of No Child Left Behind, and in some states, even longer. Critics such as Diane Ravitch argue that such high-stakes testing leads to an unproductive system which forces teachers to align instruction to their state test, forcing “kill and drill” practice of testing rather than the development of learning skills or interdisciplinary ideas. This also means that non-tested subjects, such as science and social studies, may be reduced or cut from curriculum.

PARCC and Common Core place unfair expectations on teachers and students: As teachers are increasingly evaluated based on their students test scores, many feel that they are being held to an unfair or unattainable standard placed on them by outside forces with little knowledge or understanding of the classroom. In addition, students experience the high-stakes of these tests as well: many states require that students pass their 10th or 11th grade state or federal exams in order to graduate from high school.

While this issue is far from simple, PARCC and Common Core’s future impact on American schools is clear. In the short and long-term, school curriculum and culture will hinge on the existence of these state mandated standards and tests.

We’re happy to introduce Gradeable’s new tool for classroom integration of PARCC and Common Core Standards: Multiple Correct Answer, Multiple Choice Grading. This means that teachers can grade PARCC-style questions instantly with our automatic grading tool, drastically reducing administrative busywork and giving teachers more time for their students.

For now, PARCC is a coming reality for teachers all across the nation. The transition might not be an easy one, but teachers, students, and parents…we just want to let you know that we’re with you through these changes and we’re doing everything we can to help make school a nurturing and exciting environment for both students and teachers.

We’ve been hearing a lot of concerns from the teachers in our network about keeping up with changing education policies and standards, specifically PARCC and Common Core. Teachers, to help you adapt more easily to these moving goal posts, our team at Gradeable is happy to introduce new features for classroom implementation of PARCC and Common Core State Standards.

You are able to instantly grade PARCC style questions with multiple correct answer, multiple choice grading.

You have the choice to use Common Core standards or their own custom standards for their assessments.

You have the choice to administer online assessments via email or paper assessments.

Teachers, we’re focusing on giving you options because we know you’re facing a lot of technology and policy changes on top of your day-to-day responsibilities. We’re committed to giving you flexible and trustworthy tools to help you focus on your students. Sign up for a Gradeable today, it’s free forever!

Recently, teachers have been reaching out to Gradeable with a specific problem: they are feeling overwhelmed with the sheer number of ideas and innovations that are suggested to them for use in their classrooms. With this sentiment in mind, I wanted to compile some resources for managing information by pointing you to some fellow teachers who have built similar systems for their own rooms. Here are six stellar tools to help you organize your ideas and beyond.

Together Teacher is a consultancy for schools and leadership teams on school organization and time management. While this consultancy might exceed your need, they also have a great blog on organization tools, and a wealth of resources for your classroom that are available to you if you sign up for their email list serve.

Staying curent with cutting edge educational innovations can often feel overwhelming, even if you are not a busy teacher on top of this. To keep myself up to date, I subscribe to EdSurge’s weekly newsletter Instruct, which compiles information for educators on education and technology use in the field (in a brief email). They also have a newsletter on entreprenurship in the field called Innovate that you can tack on with one additional click.

These two organizational tools help me organize, compile, and share files and email respectively. I love the ease of having access to my files from anywhere, and freedom from the sheer amount of paper that I would compile over the course of the year, especially in light of my transition to digital grading. The bonus? Having one account to access both tools (through DropBox).

Charity Preston is a master blogger. Her blog is full of strategies for organizing your resources. I am an especially big fan of her Technology page on Pinterest, where she compiles digital organizational strategies around popular tech tools for instruction.

Edmodo is a great resource for educators, and if you are not using already, I would urge you to reconsider. Connect with fellow educators on any topic in the field, from technology integration, to math and ELA. In addition to subject content, you can also post questions to fellow educators for tips on professional development and organization.

Gradeable helps you grade faster by eliminating the time it takes to evaluate and record grades in paper, digital, or project-based grading. On top of this Gradeabe is also a great tool for managing student grades and compiling a strong record of your students’ succcesses and challenges, and communicating this information to parents and fellow educators.

Keeping your room and information organized is no easy task. I hope that in reading this, you have gained a few important resources to manage your grades, tools, and digital files. Every educator can be an organized one with a few easy steps!

As always, please feel free to reach out with questions, comments or feedback. As your passionate advocate here at Gradeable, I am here to make you professional lives easier. I can be reached at ellen@gradeable.com.

]]>http://blog.gradeable.com/2014/10/6-great-resources-for-digital-organization-in-your-classroom/feed/0Digital Grading: 3 Tips for Getting Startedhttp://blog.gradeable.com/2014/09/2404/
http://blog.gradeable.com/2014/09/2404/#respondMon, 29 Sep 2014 18:55:22 +0000http://blog.gradeable.com/?p=2404Continue reading →]]>Despite the obvious advantages of transitioning to digital files and grading in the classroom, it can prove to be quite challenging. In my own transition, I learned a few important lessons about the challenges that come with going all-digital in your classroom assessment, and learned a lot about making the transition a successful one. Here are three suggestions for making the process seamless:

Know your students: As teachers we pride ourselves on knowing the whole child and developing every students’ academic, social, and emotional learning in the classroom and beyond. We know their favorite foods, their hobbies, and of course their strengths and weaknesses in the classroom. But when it comes to assessing our students, we are often unaware of their preferences and comfort regarding different assessment formats. To guide you in understanding your students’ needs and preferences, I would encourage you to consider the following questions with your class. This should guide your implementation of digital assessment, and provide insight into any challenges you may face in early implementation.

When you take a test online, what do you like about it? What challenges you?

Do you have internet and device access at home (for digital homework)?

Is it helpful to you to get immediate feedback on your school work?

Assess the digital landscape of your classroom: When transitioning to an all digital environment, it is important to consider the digital resources in your classroom and school to guide your implementation.Answering these questions in advance will help you plan lessons around your own digital resources and help you avoid feeling constrained or overwhelmed by the digital status of your classroom. For example, if you have five students to every device, consider planning a group-based assessment of your students’ proficiency rather than stretching yourself to find a device for every student.

How many computers are available in your classroom? Your school?

Are tablets or smartphones available that could be used in place of computers?

Do students bring their own device?

Do these devices have reliable internet access?

Is your classroom 1 to 1, or some other ratio of students to devices?

Find an assessment platform that meets your needs: Now that your are thinking successfully about the logistics of digital assessment, it is time to find a tool that meets your needs and provides comprehensive features for all aspects of your classroom assessment. We’ve listed some important features for digital assessment, with the hope that you will find a product that works for you, your students, and your classroom.

If you are interested in learning more about Gradeable’s new all-digital assessment tool, please click here.

In her time in the classroom, Ellen, or Ms. Ellen as she was known by her 5th grade students, experienced the challenge that grading presented to many teachers. Now a graduate student at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, Ellen joined Gradeable to help teachers like herself overcome this challenge and be another voice in product development. Ellen will be blogging about her time at Harvard, thoughts on the field of education, stories of superstar teachers, and new information surrounding the Gradeable product. Ellen can be reached directly by email at Ellen@gradeable.com. Please reach out with concerns, feedback, inquires, or of course, successes with the product.

]]>http://blog.gradeable.com/2014/09/2404/feed/0Online Formative Assessment: 5 Easy Steps to Get Startedhttp://blog.gradeable.com/2014/09/introducing-gradeables-digital-formative-assessment-tool-5-easy-steps-to-get-started/
http://blog.gradeable.com/2014/09/introducing-gradeables-digital-formative-assessment-tool-5-easy-steps-to-get-started/#respondMon, 29 Sep 2014 14:20:28 +0000http://blog.gradeable.com/?p=2385Continue reading →]]>Our digital assessment tool allows you to integrate digital formative assessment in the classroom and beyond; whether you are assessing your class for a daily quiz, semester long exams, 1:1 or 1:many assignments, or even with a quick homework assignment that you send to your students by email, Gradeable has you covered. Following our 5 easy easy steps, using our exciting new tool will save save you hours of turmoil by grading your assessments automatically!

5 Easy Steps to Get Started with Online Assessment!

1) Add in Student Emails: You can start by opening up the Gradeable dashboard. If you have not already added a class list, please do so by clicking “Students” on the main page. An important step to set up digital assessment, however, is to make sure that each student in your class has a corresponding email; otherwise, only the students with previously entered email addresses will receive an assignment. Once you have entered an email for each student, these will be saved for future assessments. Add an email by clicking on the students’ name in the Students tab, then click “Edit” on the left hand side of your screen.

2) Create an Assessment: From the Gradeable dashboard, select “Assignments” at the top of your screen. Once there, select “New Quiz” on the right side of your screen.

Name your assessment, and choose corresponding classes by checking the boxes to the left of their names. Next, decide if you want to align your quiz with Common Core State Standards, and select the standards you would like to evaluate by clicking on “Get Standards”. Once you have chosen the correct standards, choose “Create” on the top left section of your screen, and you should be able to start adding questions to your assessment.

3) Add questions to your assessment: Add questions by navigating to the bottom of your screen, and selecting “Click here to enter question.” You then have the option of adding multiple choice or short answer questions to you assignment or assessment, just as you would for our paper assessments. You can also tag questions in alignment with CCSS to measure your students’ proficiency automatically.

(Creating your assessment)

(Adding Questions)

When you are done adding questions, simply select the “Done” button at the bottom right hand corner of your screen. The end result should look similar to this:

4) Export your quiz: If you are satisfied with the end product of your quiz, its time to export your quiz by email. Instead of exporting your quiz to print on paper by choosing “Save & Quit” instead select “Share by Email” to email your assessment directly to your students (using the addresses we added earlier).

Your students are now ready to complete their assignments, and should receive an email akin to the following.

Each student should then click on the hyperlink, and login using their own email address (at which they received the assessment), and their unique access code. They can then complete the assignment as normal, and submit it to you for automatic grading.

5) Sit back and watch your assignments grade themselves: As students complete their assessments, and this is the totally awesome part, all multiple choice questions will be graded and analyzed automatically by Gradeable! All you need to do is navigate to the Assignments page in your dashboard to see student progress and results.

If you added in short answer questions, however, you have one final step! Navigate to your Assignments page on the Gradeable dashboard, and select “Grade” on the top right. From here you’ll be prompted to grade any short answer questions by assigning corresponding credit.

You did it! You graded your first digital assessment you superstar! Now that you have set up digital assessment, your future assessments should run quickly and smoothly. Now sit back and watch as your students absorb your wonderful instruction!

If you would like to learn if digital assessment is right for you, and how to make the transition, please click here.

In her time in the classroom, Ellen, or Ms. Ellen as she was known by her 5th grade students, experienced the challenge that grading presented to many teachers. Now a graduate student at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, Ellen joined Gradeable to help teachers like herself overcome this challenge and be another voice in product development on the Gradeable team. Ellen will be blogging about her time at Harvard, thoughts on the field of education, stories of superstar teachers, and new information surrounding the Gradeable product. Ellen can be reached directly by email at Ellen@gradeable.com. Please reach out with concerns, feedback, inquires, or of course, successes with the product.

In her time in the classroom, Ellen, or Ms. Ellen as she was known by her 5th grade students, experienced the challenge that grading presented to many teachers. After long days of actively engaging our students, fellow teachers still needed to spend hours grading student work in order to provide timely feedback and instructional adjustments for students. Now a graduate student at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, Ellen joined Gradeable committed to helping teachers like herself overcome this challenge and be another (and continuing!) teacher voice in Gradeable product development and design. Ellen will be blogging about her time at Harvard, thoughts on the field of education, stories of superstar teachers, and new information surrounding the Gradeable product.

My first two weeks at Gradeable have been an incredible joy. It is fantastic to be part of a working community that is so passionate about helping my fellow teachers streamline their workflow so that instruction can truly be the central focus of teachers’ time and efforts. As an educator, I am passionate about helping other teachers be the best they can be, as I believe that teachers are at the center of successful education for students everywhere, and undervalued for the incredible amount of work that they do for their students. In the classroom, I often felt that what we needed most as educators was not an increase in effort, but rather a need for stakeholders to remember that teachers efforts, every single one, should be directed towards improving instruction and student learning opportunities.

I also bring a strong passion for personal learning, and am constantly delighted to learn new things, and discover new opportunities. This passion brought me to Harvard, where I am pursuing a Masters of Education with a focus on technologies and innovation for education. I come to this program with a fair amount of skepticism, but full of optimism: in my time in the classroom, I saw the incredible impact that technologies had on my students’ learning, yet would hesitate to say that this was the best or only way that they achieved new knowledge and skills. Instead, I believe that technology informs new opportunities for us as educators to focus on what matters most: deep and constructive student learning.

My work at Gradeable will be directly informed by this background. My role will be to support teachers and their use of the Gradeable product. This will mean responding to teacher inquiries and problems, integrating teacher feedback into the product, and being a voice for teacher needs and opinion at Gradeable, both online through social media and in person. My hope is that my role will become a portal for you to interact with Gradeable, and the each and every one of you will be comfortable reaching out to me as both a resource and a fellow educator, who, like you, understands the struggles and challenges that go along with teaching and learning. All the best.

Ellen can be reached directly by email at Ellen@gradeable.com. Please reach out with concerns, feedback, inquires, or of course, successes with the product.

We were not satisfied with just making your grading go faster. We weren’t even satisfied with giving teachers invaluable insights into your students’ thinking. We wanted to give teachers more options to understand and engage students, and to that end, we are happy to announce our newest tool, Gradeable Projects. It is the perfect addition to starting and managing project-based learning in your classroom.

Gradeable Projects enables teachers to seamlessly integrate inquiry-based learning and measure standards and learning in a project format. Project-based learning (PBL) has shown increased student engagement and motivation by encouraging students to constantly ask questions and re-evaluate what they have learned. Research shows many important benefits of PBL: including higher student engagement, more self-reliance among students, better attendance, and a possible tool to close the achievement gap by engaging diverse students at all levels of achievement. Check out this helpful compilation of research provided by the Buck Institute if you are interested in learning more.

How to get started with Gradeable Projects

Simply open up your Gradeable dashboard – and alongside, select a recent (or your favorite) project. Click to create a “New Project.” (ProTip: Looking to create Gradeable’s original assessments? Just click on quiz/worksheet!)

This is your project creation page. You can modify the name, description, tagged Common Core standards, and classes here. Most importantly, you can create your project rubric which is important to maintain the rigor of your students’ projects. To create your rubric, you can copy and paste an existing rubric or use a free online tool like Rubistar to identify the correct language and criteria. You can adjust point levels up to 100. The beauty of our rubric setup is that Gradeable will total up all of your project points at the end, when you’re done with evaluating students.

After you’ve filled it out, you will be taken to your main project page. This is where you can add in different components (essays, lab write ups, posters, video, etc), print feedback you’ve left for students, and most importantly, view and grade student work.

On this page, you can sort your view by components:

Or sort by student:

To add different components, click on Evidence Based. It will take you to your evidence creation page. Remember that evidence can be any part of your project that you would like to assess students on. The component will not show up on your main project page until you upload student work into that component. Don’t forget to add to your rubric if you add more components.

To upload student work, you can either 1) go to your main project page and click on Upload Evidence or 2) go to your dashboard and click on Upload. On this page, you will see that you can upload two types of documents: 1) Worksheets—these are your completed Gradeable quizzes and assessments or 2) Evidence—this is specifically for your student project components. After selecting the files to upload, don’t forget to click Submit.

After the progress bar is finished, you will see your files populating the bottom field. Select which files you would like to organize first and fill in the correct fields on the right-side form. Save project.

Example: Upload all your project files but select only research papers. Navigate to the drop down menu and select the Research Paper component you created. Assign the work to the correct students.

When you’re ready to grade your components (and you can save and grade later as well!), navigate back to your main project page. Click on any image in the component you’d like to start in. This is your grading panel and where you will see a picture of the student work as well as the corresponding rubric. The rubric will stay with the same student throughout all the components. Quickly scroll through student work by going left or right.

To grade using the rubric, find the correct component/criterion and click on the proficiency level. Gradeable will automatically total up the scores at the end of the project.

If you choose to add comments, all feedback and rubrics can be printed out for students via your main project page. Managing and grading projects never was so easy! Now you can truly Grade Everything. Are you as excited about PBL as we are? Let us know in the comments below!

Don’t let the project blues get you, get started with Gradeable Projects—now!

]]>http://blog.gradeable.com/2014/07/introducing-gradeable-projects-manage-and-grade-projects-through-gradeables-brand-new-project-based-learning-tool/feed/0Gradeable and TFA’s iPad Mini Contest Winnershttp://blog.gradeable.com/2014/07/announcing-gradeable-and-teach-for-america-ipad-mini-contest-winners/
http://blog.gradeable.com/2014/07/announcing-gradeable-and-teach-for-america-ipad-mini-contest-winners/#respondTue, 15 Jul 2014 16:41:01 +0000http://blog.gradeable.com/?p=2359Continue reading →]]>We’re excited to announce the winners of our iPad Mini contest with Teach for America Corps Members and alum. Gradeable and Teach for America (TFA) established a partnership in April to bring innovative learning tools to classrooms. TFA is an educational organization that finds, trains, and supports top college graduates and professionals who commit to teach for two years in urban and rural public schools. The TFA network includes 11,200 corps members in 48 regions across the country, with more than 32,000 alumni working in education and many other sectors to create systemic change that will impact educational inequity.

Over a period of 24 weeks, corps members were tasked to engage with Gradeable and act on data analytics gained from everyday quizzes to help personalize students’ learning. Winners of the contest are: Esther Kim, Houston ‘12; Amy Wagoner, Kansas City ‘13; Nyamagaga Gondwe, Delaware ‘13; Aidan Loeser, New York ‘12. With over 31 regions entered, there was significant participation in the Atlanta, Mississippi, Houston and New York regions. The iPad Minis were made available as a prize through the generous donation from an anonymous Gradeable investor.

We had:

Pre-K teachers assessing letter recognition

High school Spanish teachers testing fluency

Middle school Science teachers evaluating lab reports

“I think this program is really great. Currently, I use another product and my biggest complaint is that I could never give the kids anything tangible back and I could only do multiple choice questions. Gradeable allows me to integrate both,” Chelsea Miller, Memphis ‘13.